The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | April 12th, 2025: Can China Survive A Tariff War? & Russia Launches Spring Offensive
12 Apr 2025
In this episode of The PDB Situation Report: President Trump pulls back on tariffs—except when it comes to China. Gordon Chang joins us to explain what this economic clash means for the global economy—and why it could hurt China more than the United States. On the battlefield, both Russia and Ukraine have launched fresh offensives, with fighting intensifying on multiple fronts. George Barros from the Institute for the Study of War breaks down what’s driving the new surge in combat—and what could come next. To listen to the show ad-free, become a premium member of The President’s Daily Brief by visiting PDBPremium.com. Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of The President's Daily Brief. YouTube: youtube.com/@presidentsdailybrief Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Full Episode
Welcome to the PDB Situation Report. I'm Mike Baker, your eyes and ears on the world stage. All right, let's get briefed. It's been a crazy week, if you haven't noticed. I suspect you've noticed. We'll kick things off with President Trump doing a U-turn on global tariffs, but not when it comes to China. In fact, he's ramping things up, slapping a 104% tariff on Chinese goods.
And Beijing, well, they're already retaliating. Gordon Chang joins us to talk about what this economic showdown means for China and for us. Later in the show, we'll bring you the latest from the battlefield. Both Russia and Ukraine have reportedly launched new offensives, raising the stakes on multiple fronts.
George Boros from the Institute for the Study of War, he joins us with the latest on where things stand and where they could be headed. But first, today's Situation Report Spotlight. The past week has been a wild ride. That's putting it mildly. Markets bounced around as President Trump hit pause on his global tariff push, except when it comes to China.
After Beijing fired back with 84% tariffs on U.S. goods, Trump responded with a brutal 104% tariff on Chinese imports. That one's still in place. Now, this could spell serious trouble for China. Their economy depends heavily on exports, and if those slow down, well, the pain could run deep. But just how much damage are we talking? Joining us now is someone who's been warning about this for years.
And that, of course, would be good friend of the show, Gordon Chang. He's the author of Plan Red, China's Project to Destroy America. And you can check him out on apps at Gordon G. Chang. Gordon, thanks very much again for joining us here on The Situation Report. Always excellent to talk to you. We've been on a roller coaster ride here when it comes to tariffs, particularly with China.
Give me your sort of your 30,000 foot view on what's been taking place over the past week or so and where you think it might be going.
A lot of presidents have let the China trade matters slide, and Trump had the courage to take this on. We hold all the high cards. We're the bigger economy. China is the trade surplus country. They ran a $295.4 billion merchandise trade surplus with us last year. So they've got everything to lose, and we don't.
But Xi Jinping believes that he can intimidate President Trump into surrendering preemptively because they're trying to get Wall Street, C-Suite, Main Street to put pressure on Trump to cave in. I don't think Trump will do that because we know on Wednesday, Trump imposed tariffs of 145% on China. And that's a real demonstration of political will.
I think the Chinese are going to take a long time to come to the table. This is going to be a lot of friction, a lot of tension, but we need to get this done and we need to get this done on our terms.
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